Cheating blackjack required decisions on every turn of a card. A wrong one would be our last.

In Episode 8: Cheating the game of blackjack required Dustin Marks & The Kaiser to constantly make decisions about moves to be at any given time,  when to Flash or Stack, or when to do nothing until the possible heat cools.

Watch Episode 8

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Simple. One wrong move or one wrong decision. And we go to jail.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

We were down with over 500 different cheating plays at the blackjack table in the Las Vegas casinos in the 1980s.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

We were never caught.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Damn right.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

This is Cheating at Blackjack. I'm the Kaiser. And now our host, Dustin Marks.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I'm Dustin Marks. This is the Kaiser. And you know what I want to talk about today?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

What are we doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

How about all the decisions we had to make and stay clean and not get caught?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Away from the silver handcuffs? Yeah. Those little guys in suits hauling us away. Yeah. Yes, we made a lot of decisions on a geez, every time we played, we made lots of decisions about how to play, when to play, what we're looking at over here, who's watching us. Uh, all sorts of different should I bet more, should I bet less? Um And you know what?

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Those decisions were under fire.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Always under fire. I mean, if we draw, if we try to be too aggressive, we draw attention. If we're not aggressive, we don't make enough money. Um kind of a balancing act. It's a balancing act because we say we're not greedy, but everyone's greedy. When you're winning money, you're greedy, and you have to keep that in check. And so there's a lot of decision factors. It goes into play in and dealing this flash or the stacks or all these other things we did. It has to do with all sorts of things: the environment, who's standing by, who's behind us, what's going on. There's a lot of decisions, so it's constant. It's just not keep your head down and collect the money. There's a lot of stuff we had to keep track of to keep ourselves under the radar. And that was the whole thing. We did not want to stand out.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

And while we're doing all that, if you're the dealer, you got to deal the game.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

And if you're the player, you got to just act like you're trying to win money. And that's a very interesting point because you have a role to play. Now, the dealer they have strict guidelines on what they can and cannot do. Yes, we bent those guidelines to our advantage, but still to the eye, to the bosses, to whoever's watching, it looks normal.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

We were following casino procedures.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

We were following casino procedure, which are for the most part very strict. Yeah. And, you know, strict to the point where whoever's watching you how much they want to enforce. There are bosses out there that will come over and hey, if you're standing on the wrong foot, they'll correct you. There's others, they look over and if you're alive, they're they're happy. So there's a big variance on who's behind you and who's watching. Surveillance, we have no clue on.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Well, you know, the first decision, and sometimes these decisions aren't really conscious, but I think the first decision we're going to talk about is how we got into magic, because that was the precursor to everything that happened. So, what got you into magic?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

That's interesting. Um, now, unlike most magicians, they start very young. You started at age seven. Correct. Most of them start young. They pick up the bug and they start learning tricks, usually from a friend or a family member, much like yourself. I didn't pick it up until I was about age 17. So I did like magic. My brother did card tricks, they were the dumbest card tricks ever in the world. But I did learn them and I did them for friends, and that's how I lost a lot of my friends. But at age 17, I started taking it seriously. I started learning the skills, putting it together, and uh, and that's what got me started. Then I learned from uh one of my co-workers there was a magic meeting.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

It was Darwin's magic meeting. Now he was more into magic than I was, I was just playing around, but he had some really cool stuff, told me about the meeting, and I went. And started going there, learning some things, meeting a few people. I'm not very sociable, so I did meet a whole lot of people. I kind of same with Shell. And that is where I met Dustin was at a magic meeting. You remember that? Oh, yeah. What were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Well, I kind of had a classic start that most young kids have. I was seven years old, I saw an amateur magician, and something just clicked in my head when I saw the cards. So I wanted to get good with a deck of cards. Fast forward to Gary Darwin's Magic Club. Yes. And now I purposely sought that out. Okay. Just a few weeks after I moved to Las Vegas. And that's where, of course, we met.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yes, it was very interesting. And you know, that's that is awesome how you did it. You came up through the ranks. Like most most magicians start when they're very young. And I started when I was very late, but I'm at the Gary's Darwin, and I'm learning my stuff and knowing a few people. And how I met him, how I remember it, is he was huddled with a group of magicians, big name magicians. You know, you got at the Gary Darwin's, you had Paul Harris, Alan Ackerman, Michael Skinner, Michael Skinner, Jimmy Grippman, Jimmy Gripple. I mean, all these big names are there, and you can't help but learn something.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

But Dustin was hovered around, hunkered down on the table, and they're all doing something. And I moseied over and stood roughly behind Dustin. I'm watching these guys, they're working on a shuffle. Dustin turns to me and goes, You got one? I felt like it was a litness test. You know, I had to know something at this stand there and watch these guys.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Now wait, I'm gonna check. How do you know I wasn't asking about you got a beer?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

I didn't. But you know, you guys were too involved uh in in the shuffling to have a beer. You would spilled it or something. Yeah, I don't know, but that's a good point. I just in in was in tune. Yeah, I wanted to be in there, but yeah, I uh I said, Yes, I have a shuffle, I have one. Sat down, and it happens to be I was working on a zero shovel, which is a is a tougher false shuffle, very advanced, it's advanced, and I was working on it. So I sat down, showed my wares, and we all had a good time together shuffling cards, and that's how I met him. And ever since then we've been been friends for 40 years plus, something like that. So that's how I got into magic. And so, how'd you get into cheating? That's a good question because I really don't know. It kind of just blended together, you know. After I met you at the magic club and everything, if and you poached the idea that hey, we can do this, and it intrigued me. It I like I've always liked doing stuff I'm really not supposed to do. And this wouldn't be my first off the straight course of normality or normal and you probably like beating the system. Well, that's the big thing. Yeah, I like beating the system. I mean, as growing up, I've always bent the rules here and there, but nothing to this extent. And then you didn't destroy them likely to Yeah, I had this through all caution to the win and win with this. I mean, really, if you think about it, I'm young, I have a family, I have a good job. Why risk that all? Because it's fun. Yeah, it definitely is fun, and as it turns out, was a lot of money. Lucrative, very lucrative, and it and you'll see why it's so lucrative. But that's how I got into it. What did you uh how did you get started?

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Well, I'm always was concerned about who was the best, whatever I'm doing. So at the manager be the best, not necessarily, but I wanted to learn from the best. Ah, good point. So the magic meeting I asked around, name came up, Mr. CC, went to his house, and that's when everything changed because I saw how good he was, and literally I thought this guy's light years ahead of the casinos. So if I could learn the moves, which I did, I could beat and cheat the game of blackjack. So I got turned out, in my opinion, by the best who ever lived.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Yeah, there you go. He got turned out by the best that ever lived. I got turned out by the second best that ever lived. That's a good, that's a good lineage if you want to talk about it. Thank you very much. I learned, I learned very much. That's stupid. I learned a lot about how things are done from the other side of the casino. Being on the front side, I mean, the good guys, quote unquote, from behind on the table and watching games, you know, from the legal aspect of the casino operations, that's how I was. Now I'm starting to go on the other side of that curtain and cheat the hell out of them. It was a very interesting transformation. Don't change my mind, it was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Now I know you know, but I'm gonna answer a question, and that is how did we decide which moves to do? Because I kind of explained them to you back 40 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Well, actually, I had no process in that. Uh you you said, here's what we're doing, and we spent literally untold hours practicing. And we started off at the flash, which we covered, and uh that was our mainstay, and that's what we did a lot. Then we went into stacking, then we went into other things.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

And well, let me ask you why were you so comfortable with the flash, both playing it and dealing it?

SPEAKER_00 9:26

You know, the the biggest reason why it's undetectable to a degree. Yes, everything is detectable, everything is it's not invisible, but it is the presented in such a way that it is quote unquote invisible. And as I said in the last video or one of the last ones, if you're looking at the right spot at the right time at the exact moment, and you've got very good eyesight, and you have good eyesight, yeah, it's very visible, but no one looks there. Now, the eye in the sky, the one we fear the most because they catch everything, they have no angle on it. Even if they were to get a camera on another game and zoom in, yeah, they could probably get it, but you had to you know constantly film to see it. Right. And if they don't suspect it, they're not gonna do that. There's no reason to suspect it. So they're out of it. Everyone's out of it. It's so faint and so comfortable to do that it's it's kind of second nature. I wasn't worried about it at all.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Well, let me ask you, do you think there's any real tell in playing The Flash?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

If you were watching two professionals play it as a boss, if you were a boss that does everything by the book, in which we did have bosses that were that anal, they still didn't catch it. There are variances, and I've really noticed them a lot when going back through this footage. The variances between what we're supposed to do and what we did are well, they stand out like night and day if you see it, but if you're not looking for it, there's really no tell. There is no tell. There's slight variations of where the hands are placed when you do certain things, but as far as the flash goes, there's no real solid tell. And if if it comes up, it hey, you're just sloppies. I mean, is that what what did you got on that?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Well, I completely agree. That's why it was one of the moves I decided to do. As you know, and the audience will know if they haven't tuned in. We had two main moves. We did other ones, but one was the flash. The flash, which, if you haven't seen that episode, go back, you can watch it. And the other, of course, is stacking the deck, right? Which I felt was even well, obviously was stronger, but I thought it was even more deceptive.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Stacking the deck was, I agree with you, it was more deceptive because everything that was done in the stacking process was to casino standards. There was no variance, none. The cards were picked up, put together, shuffled, cut, dealt.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Because we were doing a legitimate shuffle. Absolutely. We weren't doing push-throughs or false shuffles.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Right, those are dead tells, too.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

But they're just controlling a slug, which is a maybe eight-pack of cards.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

And any magician can tell you controlling a slug through shuffles is very easy. Granted, through the casino's process of shuffling, it's a little more detailed, but it's just as easy. So when you're looking at us do our thing shuffling, it looks like a casino shuffle. Absolutely plain and simple. And that was why I was so deceptive because nothing is different. They're picked up, they're shuffled, they're cut, they're dealt. End of suburb. It's it's that great. Do you feel much like that?

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Or yeah, absolutely. And I mentioned, I don't know if it's to you or in a previous episode, but if you were dealing double deck, which sometimes we did, and there is an ace and a jack of spades on the table when you pick up the cards, there's another ace and jack of spades in a double deck. Yeah, so there's no way to prove it was these two that winds up in the agent's hands after I shoot.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Absolutely correct. I mean, there's two area cards that you couldn't prove one way or the other. I mean, you shuffle the cards, they come out, it happens, and that's what was the beauty of it. Was uh really it was so strong.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

So that because these moves were so strong and deceptive, at least in my depend uh decision, it gave me confidence.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean that the stacking the deck is more deceptive than the flash. There are no real tells on the on the stack. The flash so minute tells if you knew what you're looking for. The stack, no, it's everything is legit with a little bit of variance. Except it isn't, it isn't, it looks legit, it plays legit, and it is flown through the years as legit.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Here's another decision we had to make, and I think we made the right one. We could stack the deck every time we shuffled, yes, but that would cause a tell if you continuously win every time the deck is shuffled. So that was a decision I think we made. We and we made the right one.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

What's the expression? Greed is good. Wrong.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Wrong. If you want to stay out of a small room with a big backyard.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

I mean, I'm telling you, if you want to sit there and draw attention yourself, stack a snapper every time you shuffle, and I guarantee even the most fallen asleep foreman is going to notice the guy snaps off the top every time you shuffle. It's obvious. So you have to avoid those types of scrutiny. That's why we didn't go for that major score every single time. So we do the flash, we do the flash, we do the flash, and then you know, we uh oh, there's there's a stack, shuffle, bingo, bam. We take it out of the blue.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Like that sound effect.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Yeah, all right. Yeah, that he's a professional at it. So, you know, yeah, we won a nice little score there, and now we go on and we'll throw it in again.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

I got a question for you. Yeah, and I know this is going back 40 years, and am I talking about average? 45-minute session. How many times do you think we stacked the deck? Either you or I doesn't really matter.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

45 minutes, I would say at least three, maybe four times. It wasn't much. And you think about this on an average, on a 21-table double deck. Uh, at the time, I think they had six seats. And we weren't always playing heads up, we had other people to contend with. So dealing out six hands of 21 does take time. So you're gonna pull off between 30 and 45 hands an hour. That's what they really kind of judge it at. So that's a lot of profit. And during that time, say 25% of the time, or you know, 15 to 20 percent of the time, we are stacking a hand. So when you're dealing, and I'm playing, you're there for 45 minutes. How often do you think we should have stacked? I mean, did you did you pass let me ask you this did you pass up winners? If you saw a lay stack, did you pass it up?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

That's a great question. Depends, like a lot of answers. If I had just stacked you, especially blackjack, the shuffle before, yes, then I would pass.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

If there were players, other players at the game. Now here's the question. When we were heads up, you had to cut every time because you're the only player to cut. I think in those circumstances we stacked the deck a lot more. And here's the interesting thing: heads up, we could get into some really interesting stacks.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

We got into a lot of different ways to play heads up where literally I stack you a 14.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

That doesn't make any sense. Who in the hell would stack their agent a 14? And the answer is because we had a seven coming.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Right or your dealer's on a bust.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

The dealer busts, and that you're a casino guy, you know the percentage of times the dealer busts, at least back then, it might change a little.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

No, I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

28. 28. That's more than one and four. Yeah, so it's not gonna look odd that the dealer busts.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

No, that's a good thing. So that's that's playing heads up is a whole different animal. We have, I hate to say it, abused it. We played two hands, heads up, and the money raked in. Literally raked it just in. We uh we tore a new, I hate to say it, a new asshole for the casino because we just took it all. And here's now here's and it was yeah, and but it wasn't just I'm constantly winning. He's busting. I'm playing, he's busting. It's just normal play. It wasn't like I'm getting 20, 21 snappers, double downs. I'm just playing and he's busting. So but not every time, obviously. Yeah, not every time, but we don't have 100% control, but we have enough control to where we know what the the dealer's hands are gonna be. I know what my two hands are gonna be. That is going to be covered in future episodes where we can see the hands are gonna be dealt on the table, much like a lay stack and uh advanced staffing. I think we've got the next chapter. There you go. So that is where we really get into the nitty and the gritty, and how we really pulled down the cash. And there's some great stories in there, too.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Now, I got a question for you.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

I don't have any answers, I'm all good.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

And this is a decision we had to make. Okay, maybe sometimes we made the wrong one, but let me ask you the question. I'm dealing, you're playing, you're my agent, of course, and there's only one other player at the table. If you can get rid of him by various means, then we're heads up. And it's over the top.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

That's the goal, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

So my question is can you recall any times you might have gone a little over the top to get rid of a just a regular player, a square at the game so we could be heads up?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

It's a very interesting question. And I'll tell you how the few times that I tried to move people, hey, it doesn't fit my personality, but I would sit there and take on a negative attitude. I mean, I'm losing, throwing my cards, bitching to the guy next to me. Man, this is this guy's horrible, man. You see him beating the shit out of us. You're not winning, I'm not winning. Why are we still here? You know, this type of thing, just constantly going on about how bad the cards are, how I'm losing, how he's losing. I mean, until the point they're tired of hearing me bitch. Yeah, Mr. Negative, but so I'm dogging and wranging and bitching, and just it's not fun for anyone at the table to have people like that on the table. Just ask them. They all get up and leave. That's it, that's what they do now.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Or they'll complain to the boss that this guy's a you know horrible, and we say, What are you gonna do? So that was my tactic, but my favorite, he's got the best. Tell him your your method of getting a guy off the table.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Well, real quick, I now we're talking about this. I remember one time, and I can play that role pretty easily. So the guy is um, no, no, I'm sorry. Yeah, I did that, but one time I was bitching, but I was acting like, let's say you're the square, we're like a team, although we're not trying to beat the deal. Play as a team, there you go. So we're losing and losing, and finally go, you know what? We should go play against a different dealer. So the guy gets up and walks away, and I just stay, obviously. So like, you know, what's the guy gonna say?

SPEAKER_00 20:56

So, along those lines, this is one of my favorite stories. I mean, this is way out there. We're playing, I'm dealing. We got a square on first base. He's locked in like he's chained to the table and fed for six years. Yeah, he's never leaving. He's locked in, as we say. He's not going anywhere, he's got money in front of him, he's he's doing fine. Dustin sits down right next to him in the second chair, and they're playing. He's playing on the square, which is not our forte. And finally, you know, Dustin said, Well, you know, you tell the story.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

This is the older one you talk about. So we want to move this guy at first base, and you can tell he's not gonna move being mean to him. He just has a real good personality. So I start saying, kind of getting, you know, on his good side, and again acting like we're a team against the dealer, and we're just losing. So I wait till we lose like three, four, or five hands in a row. I go, ah, this is ridiculous. We got to do something. I know this sounds Crazy, but how about if we switch suites? And he's sitting at first base, and that's the seat I'm on exhibit. And the guy goes, Okay. And I sit down first base, and somehow, magically, I start winning all types of money.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

It worked for him. Yeah. I don't know what happened to him. He kind of faded away, but we got what we wanted. He was in first base and we went to work.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Now, let's analyze that decision. A it worked, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

It works.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

And I don't think there's any downside.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

The only downside I can think of is if A, that's his lucky spot. And believe it or not, people have their lucky spots. They they lock themselves in. This is my spot. I only play at this spot, and I'm not leaving. Because this, according to the stars and my birth certificate, this is my spot. Says right there. Play 21, third section, right there. So this is, I mean, they're locked in. That's their belief system. You can't move them. So now here's the thing. If that's his spot, you're not gonna be able to move it. And if you try to cut into him, try to, hey, hit and hit, get off my chair. Hey, huh. Complain to the boss.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

You bring up a great point. So we can't move the guy. And we find out pretty quick. So the decision is I abandon, let's say you're dealing, I'm playing. I abandon this round, your ship for 45 minutes. I go off so nobody can see me, go eat or whatever. Then I come back when you come back onto the floor to a different game. Hopefully, first base is open. Let me ask you if I made the right decision. We have a guy at first base, we can't move him. And you can tag team a guy. I is the player and Kaiser's a dealer, but he's not moving. So I'm thinking this guy ain't gonna move. I don't want to be exposed to the bosses that long. So I leave your game, go get something to eat. So I'm not seen, and I know when you're gonna come back on the floor after your break. And now I try to get to the first base spot at the new table you're dealing at.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Yeah, that is the best way to go. Which is interesting, you bring up when you were dealing, they were set a three-game string all night long, saying three tables. Okay, so if the situation was if I couldn't get in on your table, I would go to the next table you're gonna go to. Granted, I would have to play longer on the square, which we call cover play, for you know, almost an hour or so till you come to me, which is fine. That's it looks perfect because the dealer's coming into the game I'm already established on, which is perfect. But in my situation, I worked in a spot where they did a rubber band. So when I came back from break, I didn't know which table I was going to. I was always going to a different table. So he had to wait for me to land, and hopefully I landed on a table that had first base open. And if not, he's got to stand around and pretend he's doing something for another hour.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, it got kind of boring. Now, one thing we would do, and I think you'll agree this was a good decision, is you're gonna go to the next game I'm gonna be on. So three-game rotation, six, seven, eight all night. You go to game seven, you keep your chips, but you supposedly go to the bathroom and you stay away from the game 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah, we we stretched it out. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

That way you can't lose money because when you're on game seven, I'm still on game six, you're playing on the square.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

I'm playing on the square, you know, basic strategy to the max, counting a little bit. I was not a good counter. I did it for a brief period, but it was just too much work for me. So between the two combinations, the whole idea was just to stay pretty much even, yeah. Here, like a roller coaster up and down. Um, there's an interesting story I'll tell later that I get to them after a hard day of a hard round of being beat up and I had no money, but that's a great story. I'll get to that one. But yes, that was our decisions. We did not want to be in the limelight or sitting on the table or constantly landing and moving, landing and moving. So you sit there in his case, since he didn't know what table I was going to, just vanish. He had to vanish, get away from it, and come back after I land. And uh that was a good point.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

I think you'll agree. The less the boss in the casino sees you playing, the more longevity you'll get.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Yes. And here's the thing with bosses, they, you know, I dog them a lot. I mean, I was one for many, many, many years on the floor watching casino games, is that they're basically in La La Land. They glance around, they keep track of their games, they know what's going on, but nothing is really set in stone. A player comes down, draws your interest, you watch, you're done. And you can glance back here and now and then, you know, to check on him if he catches your eye. But nothing really stands out about it. But now if he keeps coming back and back and trying to, you start to connect the dots. And that's the last thing we want to do is a four-person to connect the dots. And you know, I dog on the four people, but they really do do a good job. They're just not in the same league we are, but they do put pieces together, and you got to give them that. So if you're constantly in and out on the same person, it it starts to go, why? Now, of course, you can always draw the card, well, he's my lucky dealer. Yeah. Which is very, very common. Players follow dealers everywhere because they're lucky.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah, and that's good in a sense. In fact, we picked up a lot of the best lines from Squared. Yes. And I think that was a good decision. What are some of those lines? Oh, well, I remember one, and we used this. Of course, I'm gonna that big off the top of the deck or new shuffle because all the aces are in the deck. You can't get a blackjack, but the aces are gone, which is actually that part is true.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

That is true, but here's the best part about that. No, that's not true. The players say that right because they think, well, they got all the cards, they got a big better chance of winning. No, off the top is the worst time to bet heavy, and that's why we look stupid half the time because when we stack a deck, we bet large and we have to get lucky with a double down or a snapper. And so players actually said that. They thought that was the best time to bet heavy. So that was a great line, and it fit into the whole methodology that we went by. That's a great, great line. I got a question for you. See if you remember.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Oh, god, what was my cover profession when I was playing against you at I'm not gonna name the casino, but you probably know when I was in a lot.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

I do not remember.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

I like this one. Now I was much younger and built pretty well. I was a stunt man.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Stunt man, that's right. And I mean, he still looks great for being 112 years old. 111. 11, I'm sorry. No, back in the day, he was fit. I mean, he was and he still is, but he was a bodybuilder at one point. He was built, and so if he said he was a stunt man, by God, he looked it. And I forgot about that. And boy, people would ask him, I'm a stunt man. He said, get back and forth. Meanwhile, he's meaning a shitload of money. That's another great thing we did. We, if we did interact with the players, we really got involved in the conversation while we were still doing our business. We mended the two so well that you couldn't tell that we were looking at this, or we knew we had a stack coming because we saw the cards. We're not paying attention to the game. I'm paying attention to Bob over here, who's a stunt man.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Yeah, that's a great point. We made a good decision. Instead of telling not really telling the guy, but basically not talking to him, which would be kind of weird. We engage with the uh square and it doesn't look suspicious to the bosses.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah, I I mess around with the boss. I was more in tune with messing with the bosses that were players, because bosses, a, they're bored, and if they have someone they can talk to, they enjoy that. So, you know, they'll come over, talk to you, still watch their section. And as we pointed out during the flash, I take them out of play. Because if they're at my game talking to me, they're not watching my game.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Yeah, ironically, because you're watching the other games.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yeah, they're standing, they'll look around and you know, check it out, they'll listen to the other dealers. They're they're doing their job. They're just not doing it on this table because they're at this table.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Yeah, it's interesting. They're at the table, they're not watching it, but I think in their mind They're at the table. Yeah, so this table couldn't be doing anything because they're at the table.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Right, they got the players right there and everything's under control and they can hear everything that's going on. So they're you know, they'll stand there and they're talking, they'll clan around like this. I mean, a good foreman will look around all the time, and most of the foremen were good, or four persons, I guess. Yeah, but they were they were good at their job, but they were also very easy to manipulate because A, it's a very boring job, really is so it's easy to get them involved in the doing something that's different than their day. So we used to take them out that way.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Now, let me ask you something. Sure. You being a casino guide. When the boss is at the table and he's talking to you, but he's looking around at other games, does he feel that? Well, I'm at the table, so there's no way anybody would try to do anything because I'm right here at the table, even though I'm not looking at the cards much.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

I think for the uh John Q Square, yeah. You know, they're not gonna they think they're being surveilled, they're not gonna do anything. Uh for those who are like for counters and stuff like that, that that doesn't affect them at all. Because they're gonna do what they do, they're still gonna play their character and they're gonna keep doing if you're there or not. So, but for the John Q public square, yeah, they they feel that way. I'm just saying, I'm the decision master.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

What decision did you make, or what was the factors to make the decision of where you dealt as far as which casinos?

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Whoever hired me. No, the the main factor is like we said earlier, back in those days you got fired, you walk across the street, get another job. It was very easy to get hired. So the criteria wasn't if if I get hired, it's where I get hired. And my thinking is I have to find a casino that is mostly single and double deck. Back then you had single deck sprinkle, but mostly double deck games with the sprinkle of shoes. Not like today, where everything is basically a shoe out of a machine. So that was the criteria. So I would look for the casinos that met that criteria, and I would just go in and say, hey, look, let me audition. And they put me to work. But that was it. I had to have that. I couldn't go into a casino that was all shoes, that'd be a waste of my time. Yeah, I'd be working for a living. I don't want to work on a living. Hell with that.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Yeah, I agree completely. The dominant factor was how many single and double deck games they had, because that's what we wanted to deal with. That's how we made money. Yeah, make our money. So that was uh interesting. I know both of us got fired for different reasons, nothing super serious, but and I'm sure you did the same as I. We didn't back talk, we didn't complain, we didn't cry. So that was an important decision that we had to make when we would get fired.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Exactly. When you got fired, we just move on. Yeah. I mean, you know, I I've been fired for no reason. I told the story. I walked in, I got fired. I had no idea why I got fired. I have my suspicions why I got fired, but it had nothing to do with cheating the casino and none. In fact, here's my observation. The reason why I got fired at this one particular job, and I just walked in and boom. Oh, before you ever walked in the pit. I walked in the pit and said, You're fired.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

That's when I talked to the old man, which I talked about earlier. But my thinking on that is the day before I ran into one of your associates, the counter dude. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and we had a nice little conversation for about five minutes. Now he's known as a counter. Oh, yeah. Bingo. Now, here's where the eye and the eye, the big evil, they were probably following him throughout the whole casino. Yeah, sir. Okay, so they were kind of keeping an eye on him. This is my guess. Rerunning each other. Hi, Bob. Hi, Bob. How you doing? Fine, great. How? Things are going good. Great. We'll see you later. That's it. I get fired because I knew the guy. So they figured if you got a world-class card counter and you were a dealer, ho ho ho, there's something going on there. So I got fired. That's my suspicion. Yeah. Um, so transfer of heat. Exactly. I we weren't even doing business with him. I don't think I was even doing business in that joint. In fact, we weren't. That was somewhere else. That was before I whacked. I just knew the guy. Pre-wacky. Pre-wacky. Pre-whacked termination over nothing. So that's how anal they were. If you even talk to someone who is evil, you're guilty. Yeah. Is there a time when you made a decision that was a good one or a bad decision?

SPEAKER_01 35:49

There's one I'm thinking of. I gotta kind of not be specific, but there was a casino that was known, especially back then, that you don't cheat him.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

Mm-hmm. Yes, there was.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

So that pays $500, but it's going to be split three ways. So I'd make a little over $2,000. And the downside was really bad. I mean, really bad. So that's one decision I didn't say yes to. And to this day, I think I made the right decision.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

You definitely made the right decision. I'm pretty sure I know the place you're talking of. And yes, that one you do not want to mess with. They take it very seriously when they think something's wrong. And you made the right choice. Because I don't think he'd be here today if he made the wrong choice.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

No, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

So good choice. Well, that's very interesting. That's also scary. Yeah. I mean, sure, this is all fun and games until someone goes missing.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Well, that's awesome. That's a great story. It gives me chills just thinking of the possibilities because place was notorious, had a reputation, and if you cross them, there were there were real consequences.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Yeah. And some of our listeners, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Probably put the pieces together. Yeah. Anyone who knows a little bit of gaming history in this town and it being mobbed on and rules don't apply to many, many people.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Let me ask you, what made you decide to stop cheating?

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Well, basically, the reason I stopped was a basic uh I ran out of people. Uh, you retired, and uh I had other agents, but then again, life goes on for other people and they don't have the time or the ability or whatever the reason is. So my my pool of agents dwindled to nothing. So there's no one to dump the money to, then there's no one to dump to, period. Yeah. And I didn't want to go through all the hassle of hiring, not hiring, but training another person because A, it's a lot of time. I mean, we spent I mean, a billion hours perfecting our skills. I mean, we were in practice more times I think we were planned. So it's very intense practicing, and I want to go through that. Plus, it's uh, you know, you got to trust the people. Yeah, it's a risk, it's a big risk, and I'm not one to trust many people. Uh so trying to find someone who I think would be good and anything like that. Did you have any have a bad experience with an agent?

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Yes. When you're recruiting, yes, and I thought this, you know how you have an idea think it's gonna be great. It's a casino where I was dealing, you were coming in, so I thought, wait a second, if we have two dealers, then you could play against both of us and then a third random dealer, so it definitely looked like you weren't playing specifically against one of the right.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

I just know they're stiff in a casino plan.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Yeah. Well, I I knew of this person a little bit, but the person she was married to, it was a woman, was a stand-up guy. So I thought, okay, he's a stand-up guy, she's gotta have some brains and etc. and be trustworthy, I guess. So I did teach her how to deal with flash, and she was okay, she wasn't great, but she wasn't terrible.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yeah, she was adequate, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

But uh, of course, I never played against her because she was a dealer in the casino I was in, so I was I couldn't play that.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

I would go and break, you go sit on the table and play. That would be even better, huh?

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Yeah, they got my draw some heat for sure. So anyway, but what happened, and part of it was my fault, she recruited a guy and she did on her own, but she did tell me and I remember she telling me his name and where he worked, and I was gonna call this casino and ask for him. And I didn't. And if I would have he didn't work there, so then we would have known something's wrong, and I would have told her just string this guy along and just you know, uh, the timing's not right, da da da. Well, it turned out he worked for gaming control, bingo, yeah. So she got popped, it's a very minor thing, and I honestly I don't know what happened, but shortly after that, I was dealing, and you weren't on the game definitely, and this guy was burning me. I mean, way over the top. So I pretty much thought he was gaming, and I said, Well, you can watch O'Rapture, I ain't doing anything, which I wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Now, am I aware that they came in and pulled her off the game? Arrested her.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

I th I wasn't there, but I think, yeah, I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Here's the story that I know. So I'm aware of her. Yeah, I was set to go in on New Year's Eve, which is uh it's the biggest night. The thank you. It's the biggest night in Vegas, packed casinos, lots and lots of cash going across the tables. So me being there would not draw attention. I could bet shitloads of money and knowing a blink an eye because it's New Year's Eve. Now I'm all set to go in knowing that it's going to be busy, so I was gonna go in there early. Lucky for me, I'm kind of a frisky guy, and my wife wanted me to stay home for fun times. In other words, I stayed home to get late. And that was a good thing because that was the night she got popped. They, you know, she apparently, from what I understand, she set it up that I would be coming in and you can have him and you can catch him in the act. But I stayed home and had a good old time and not worry about the money, and she got popped. So I escaped that situation of being arrested, and that was probably one of the the horniest best moments I had to make his decision. I mean, I mean, money or having a good time. I chose having a good time, and it was a good thing, and that was a great decision.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Okay, last decision question.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

Oh, that's a decision in itself.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Yes, it is. What made you decide to stop?

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Basically, the the it was a out of necessity. I didn't have anyone to deal with. Yeah. Uh, my my agents, when you retired, my other agents, their life changed. They had to do their thing, I had to do my thing, and we just couldn't make it work anymore. So it dried up. And when that dries up, like I said, I'm not gonna go through the trouble of training anyone else or other. So it just comes to an end. It's like uh just the train comes to a stop, everyone gets off. Train doesn't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

The reason I stopped cheating is my mentor did get popped.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Yeah, not luckily in Vegas, but he got popped. And yeah, a bunch of things happened, but they knew I at least knew him.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

So you more or less were guilty by association, exactly, could be possibly.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

So I thought this is a good time to quit. I won a lot of money, never got caught, and I could say in 40 years, which is now 40 years, I never got caught.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

That's right. And I could say in 40 years later that he never got caught.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

And it's the truth, though. That's the important thing, it's the truth.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Yeah, so we we did our thing and we both come out unscathed. Uh, big smile on the face and money in our pockets. Of course, in back then, money didn't last a lot of my pocket, it was gone.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

So, I guess to sum up, wouldn't you say that we made very good decisions, even though we were tempted a lot of times, we didn't take the bait, the bait being greed. And that's one of the main reasons we're here talking about this today.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

I think you're right on the money. We had a lot of decisions to make, and I think we made the right. And we had choices. I say, Well, can I put out this or I can do this or I can do this? But both of us stuck to our main core, and that was very strict guidelines on how to play, when to play, and how to play it. And we didn't vary. Uh, for that fact, we're still here today. Tell talk to you about it. If we would have let greed grab us by the short ones and pull us away, I don't think we'd be here today. Because most greedy people don't last long.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

To emphasize your point, let's just pretend I'm the dealer, I have a 10 up, deck is rich in tens, you got an 18, you see a three coming. Now, the correct play mathematically, obviously, is the hip.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

An 18 into a 10?

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Mathematically. It's seeing a three coming.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

Well, sure, if you saw the three coming, but you'd never hit an 18 into a 10.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

No, because it's too suspicious. Even though seeing three, it's a guaranteed winner, we wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

I grant you, sitting there and saying, oh gosh, I get a 21, I got a bunch of money out there, I'll win. But it is a strong tell that something's wrong. Especially you haven't been doing it the whole play. Yeah, you've been playing goofy plays. I mean, you're you're you're diverting from basic strategy, which most players know to some degree, but you know, you're hitting you're staying on stiffs against a stiff, you're hitting uh stuff you're not supposed to hit. So you're all over the place. But it's all within the realms of acceptability. Yep. Hitting an 18 into a 10 is insane. A drunk person wouldn't even do that.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

And then getting a three?

SPEAKER_00 45:49

And getting a three, it just screams something's up.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

So we never made a bad decision based on the thing. Not like this one getting that.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Now I have, I have on the past, in a desperate times, I think I've done it once, maybe possibly twice. I did hit a 17. But here's the thing: you pick him up, you just kind of scratch like that. The dealer hits, and you go, whoa, whoa, oh, well, I'll take it. You know, enough for the and at one time the boss came screaming across the pit, saying, uh apparently he thought I was gonna stay, and I I scratched. He says, Well, you're gonna stay. I said, but he gave me the card, I want it. So what is he gonna say? I scratched, he either gave it to me. They can't say, Well, that's no good. I knew damn well what the confrontation was gonna be. I was gonna win. I'm the player, and they can't prove one way or the other. Because I picked up the cards, dealer interpreted it as a scratch. He goofed. It's not my fault. I got 21. Pay me, bitch. So, yes, I've done it at least twice, but it's not one of those things you do regularly. Well, it's called what he's doing is an oh, excuse me, and it's plausible. It's a plausible reason why. And I can get away with it. I did it twice. I got away with it twice.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

And he means twice in the entire time.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

The entire time I played the whole time. Twice a night or see. In the whole year and a half that I was doing this, I only did it twice, and that was out of pure desperation for one reason or another. Maybe it was a rough night and I just needed the money to get back on track. Who knows why? But twice, twice in a year and a half, I I broke the rules. But as you said, the plausibility was there. I knew what to do when the boss came over and said, Something's wrong here. Hey, he screwed up. He's your dealer. I, you know, he took my scratch. I just picked up my cards. He thought it was a scratch. I'll take the four. You gave it to me. And when the boss questioned me, I go, Yeah, I thought he scratched. I'm just trying to deal with the game. So we we both had outs, and we both know this, and it's not a smart play. I'll be the first to tell you is not the smartest way to play, but I did it. Sue me. So, but normally you don't want to do stuff like that. And that's why we stayed under the wire because we did not take that greed. We didn't hit our 18s into tens and you know, to get those 21s and stuff like we just didn't, it wasn't worth it. The long term longevity, the longevity far outweighs that one hand of maybe I got an 18 against a 10, I'm gonna lose a couple hundred. Big deal. I make it up in a couple of hands. Exactly. You know, you know, if you watch the flash demo, you know, I lose a bet. I even push a bet. But look at the money I had in front of me, starting with 300. I had over a thousand in front of me. And so I lose a hundred, I'll get it back. That's the smart way to play. You don't want to try to win the whole casino in one hand.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Yeah, well, you can't anyway.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

True, but some people try.

SPEAKER_01 48:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

This is Dustin playing against me, and I make no qualms about saying that Dustin is highly skilled. I was mediocre, according to his level. I did make mistakes, and I got looks for him. Anyway, we see a lay. We got a 21. I know I'm sorry. Yeah, we have a blackjack coming to Dustin. That's late in the late in the plays. He's about ready to take off, so why not take a big stab at you know, leaving the game with some money? Put $700 out there because he knows he's gonna snap right off the top. He gets his first two cards. I have two other players at the table. He gets his first two cards, and I'm standing there, and I'm I'm looking forward. I'm not watching him. The cards do not flip over, he does not throw his cards over like you know, you do it. You know, he just he's hanging on to them like this. And I look over to him and he goes, and he burns me with these eyes, and then he slowly turns over his hand. He's got two aces. So there's only two, so AI screwed up big time, that's $700 out there, and he's got two aces, which means what he has to split. Pull those puppies of the city. Guess what? We split, there's another $700 on the table. So the hand is now $1,400 on the on the chance that he may lose. So we got that down. He's got his first two cards face down. We don't know what they are.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

Well, he doesn't know, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

I yeah, I don't know what they are. He doesn't know what they are, and usually on a on a split. When they put the cards out, you don't look. That's just etiquette. So he did look, and so I got the other two players out there. Now, the trick is I have a 10 up. And I know I'm sorry, I had a five up. I have no idea what's underneath it. So now as I'm getting to the other players, I gotta find out what cards are gonna be played. So the player hits, no problem. The next player, every time in between, I do a bubble peek, the top card of the deck, which is a very handcuffed moment. It's very obvious, even to the passive onlookers, especially surveillance. So I do a bubble peek, I see what the card is, I hit them out. So after I finish the last player, I have no idea what I have in the hand, so I peek my top card. It's a six. That's pretty good. I flip over my hand, I have a 15. That six would make me 21, which means I would either push and lose, or if very lucky, I would push both hands, which is very unlikely, or lose fourteen hundred dollars. So I see a six coming, that would give me twenty-one. So I have only one option, and that is do a second deal on my draw. I pull it out, flip it over, it's another five, I think, giving me a twenty, which is hopefully good enough. We come around, the first ace it was a 10 for 21. Good. That's a winner. The second one was less than 20. That lost. It's a push. It is a push. But that was good enough for me. We got out of that mess. But the glare, the glare that he just sliced me into little pieces as I shrunk on the table. Yeah, like this. It was just this horrifying glare. Now, here's the funny part of all this horror. Fast forward a week, he's back in doing what he does. Two guys sit down and they start playing. They look over and go, Oh, oh, you're the guy with the aces! You spit the aces! It's like out of the blue, they remembered him, but they didn't remember me. It really made me feel bad. It was hysterical, out of the blue. They remembered him splitting the aces and having all that money out there. Oh, they went on for another 10 minutes about the whole thing. They re regurgitated for him to remember. I was awesome. But that was a very funny moment and also a very scary, scary moment. Because that's a lot of money to lose on a mistake. And I made I made my fair share. He never made a mistake, I made a lot.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Well, it's Magic Minute, and I know you have something for us to say.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

That's awesome. Magic, I like Magic Minute. Take the pen, take the cap off. Don't mark yourself up. There's no fun that way. Cool. Just reach in and just take out a card. Just take out a card. There we go. Put it on the table. Write your name across the face of that card in big bull blazing letters. I mean just big bull blazing letters. Starts with a D.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

All right.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Very good. Great. There we go. Stick your card right on top of here to recap. You sign this card. You say yeah. So first we're gonna stick it in here. That's still your card. Yeah. Okay. Then we're just gonna stick it in here like this and give them a little cut. Like this. No. I am going to magically find your card. You ready? Oh, wait a minute. That's a red card.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

Yeah, these are blue cards.

SPEAKER_00 54:03

Well, that's still your signed card.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 54:10

How in the hell does that happen?

SPEAKER_00 54:13

Bizarre. Where can folks get this blushing Piat for Piat Fortin? The pop-out move. Uh it will be a link in the description on where you can go and purchase the instructions on this very fine, shocking color changing card, assigned a color changing card. So thank you. I'm gonna put these away now.

SPEAKER_01 54:40

Well, we have a uh kind of a surprise for listeners. What is our surprise? Well, I have a ebook called 103 Tips and Resources for Magicians. So very well on library.com. If you want a copy, totally free, all you have to do is in the comments comment, don't be a square. And now this isn't the first purse in the comment. Anybody who comments will get that ebook. I will respond with the link for you.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

You can't miss it. So what's up next?

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Don't be a square.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Share. We'll see you next week. Bye.